Are you having lag spikes, and can't figure out why? This might answer it

@FerreusIronForge

What you stated here

If you see that your connection is fine on most hops, but times out in one or two in between. THAT is the level 3 node you're looking for.

 Not sure what you are implying, it Doesn't mean an issue, a router is often profiled to ignore ICMP packets and this is why they time out , if one of these hops is actually an issue it will be reflected on every hop after those hops.

Edit - maybe this will help (page 32)