We investigate the effects of (2+1)d event-by-event fluctuating hydrodynamic backgrounds on the nuclear modification factor and momentum anisotropies of heavy-flavor mesons. Using the stateof-the-art D and B mesons modular simulation code (the so-called DAB-mod), updated recently with heavy-light quark coalescence, we perform a systematic comparison of different transport equations, including two energy loss models and a relativistic Langevin model with two drag parametrizations. We present the resulting D 0 meson R AA , v 2 and v 3 , using the multiparticle cumulant method, in Pb-Pb collisions at √ s NN = 5.02 TeV and compare them to the latest experimental data. We investigate the v 2 {4}/v 2 {2} ratio as a function of centrality for different initial conditions (MCKLN vs. Trento) and different system geometries and sizes (coming from Pb-Pb collisions at √ s NN = 5.02 TeV, spherical and prolate Xe-Xe collisions at √ s NN = 5.44 TeV).