Montage animations play either without rootmotion or will have rootmotion but no animation

I’ve set up animation montages to play when I left-click. But with Metahumans the weapon only works properly if parented to the body not the mesh. so i thought similar would apply for playing the attack montages
When I connect the body to the play montage node (as the skeletal mesh component), animations play but without root motion
But when I connect the character mesh the character slides around (which i imagine is the roomotion) but no animation. im obviously new to this. so any help would be greatly appreciated.