This page summarizes currently known problems when running with java8, latest beta (1.8.0-ea-b119).
maven-verifier
embedded mode does not work due to sun bug 9009028 (not public yet) - System.setProperties(null) corrupts java.home. This affects at least maven-core and surefire.
maven-shade-plugin
Believed to have substantial problems due to ASM 5 being required. ASM5 has a tentative release date in march, might be with a beta up-front. Current ASM-5 beta not usable. We should consider starting migrations on the next beta.
maven-surefire-plugin
Running forkMode=never was fixed in 2.17 (unreleased as of yet). Building still does now work, running build with -Dverifier.forkMode=once should do the trick.