Well, I at least port forwarded 2302 and set myself up on DMZ. I also disabled my OS firewall all together, so I suppose it is something on his end. I don't see how though because he hosted a game and one of his friends played with him just fine (his friend hosted too). I'm just ready to give up on it and find a clan I suppose. Thanks for the help though.
---------- Post added at 12:06 ---------- Previous post was at 10:57 ----------
One of my clan mates offered a plausible explanation for the situation: he told me some routers are just incompatible and the only way to play together is through a middle man. I wasn't sure at first but it makes sense. I even tried a VPN to no avail. So I'll just get a middleman I suppose. I thank you all for your time and advice. Or I'll just have him hardline into his modem, whichever. Peace.