Must be something wrong with the SMTP portion of the program as Mail Gun didn't work either

Then I'm pretty sure it's caused by:

but by using Mail Gun's SMTP, aren't I completely bypassing my host's SMTP's server?

No, your host can block outgoing traffic that is sent to specific ports.
I've been in this situation before at a host, they had SMTP traffic completely disabled on new servers and only removed the port limitation upon request.

ah man I've got Go Daddy Shared hosting, the first layer of support is strictly denial - but I'll give it a shot.

--------------- Added [DATE]1480214346[/DATE] at [TIME]1480214346[/TIME] ---------------

Ok didn't get any help on the SMTP part. They said they ain't blocking anything, but I did find in the MX settings on cPanel that outgoing mail was set to localhost. I change it first to Remote Exchange and while I couldn't send via SMTP, mail did go out when I turned SMTP off. I then set to auto detect, and got same results.

While it would be nice to send via SMTP, at least confirmation mails are now going out.

Thanks for the help