This is the exact same issue i'm having, and it's not related to dreamer's wrath or baruuk at all. Rather, it is related to having discipline's merit on your main melee weapon. If you have it on your praedos for example; a common weapon for baruuk players, your exalted weapon will NEVER TRIGGER TENNOKAI. This happens across all weapons with discipline's merit and affects all exalted melee weapons including Wukong's iron staff and Excalibur's Umbra blades.
I've already made a couple posts on the topic but it's so niche it seems to have failed to get any attention from the devs.