Hierophant / Arcane Blessing Question/Issue

I'm a dirty casual, currently running a spell totem hierophant with scorching ray, and I picked up arcane blessing. My biggest problem right now seems to be that scorching ray only seems to trigger the arcane blessing / Arcane surge about 10-15% of the time if that.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but the tooltip says "gain arcane surge when you or your totems hit an enemy with a spell". I've killed packs of 20-50 monsters with my scorching ray totems and never gotten a single arcane surge trigger.

Am I doing something wrong? or not understanding how this ascendency is supposed to work? Most of the bosses i've fought in the campaign so far since picking up arcane blessing...no arcane surge at all.

If anyone can give me some insight on whats going on i'd appreciate it.

I've also tried swapping out scorching ray to a different spell, (I tried Ball Lightning) to similar effect. Although it did seem to keep my arcane surge up more often then the scorching ray.

Thanks

SR doesn't hit.

Then how am I occasionally getting arcane surge? the only thing i'm using is scorching ray with spell totem and searing bond when I remember to hit it.