diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 95fec0dd8c..5761589590 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -212,27 +212,24 @@
             <plugin>
                 <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                 <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
-                <!-- versions after this appear to be broken -->
-                <version>3.1</version>
+                <version>3.6.1</version>
                 <configuration>
                     <!-- we use the Eclipse compiler as it doesn't need a JDK -->
                     <compilerId>eclipse</compilerId>
-                    <!-- source and target are ignored if this isn't true -->
-                    <optimize>true</optimize>
                 </configuration>
                 <dependencies>
                     <!-- we need our custom version as it fixes some bugs on case sensitive file systems -->
                     <dependency>
                         <groupId>org.codehaus.plexus</groupId>
                         <artifactId>plexus-compiler-eclipse</artifactId>
-                        <version>2.5.0-spigotmc</version>
+                        <version>2.8.1-spigotmc</version>
                     </dependency>
                 </dependencies>
             </plugin>
             <plugin>
                 <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                 <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
-                <version>2.19.1</version>
+                <version>2.20</version>
                 <configuration>
                     <workingDirectory>${basedir}/target/test-server</workingDirectory>
                     <excludes>