Hmm, well technically it should have worked if you’ve set it to overlap when the attack animation is playing. Have you tried setting it to NoCollision during the attack?
Also, I think the NPCs use Capsule Collisions, right? I guess that’s why they go up into the air (they try to stand on the shield) so there’s definitely some active collisions happening. You could make the sword and shield a new object type, and make sure the NPC capsules ignore object type in collisions → I assume you are using physics bodies instead of the capsule component as hit boxes?
Physics Bodies in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.5 Documentation | Epic Developer Community