Gradle compilation issue with Reflections' dependency Javassist

[Zidane]

Due to the fact that the Javassist lib pushes production poms with placeholder variables, compiling a Gradle project using flow-plugins will fail

* What went wrong:
Could not resolve all dependencies for configuration ':compile'.
> Could not find org.javassist:javassist:${javassist.version}.
  Searched in the following locations:
      file:/C:/Users/Chris/.m2/repository/org/javassist/javassist/${javassist.version}/javassist-${javassist.version}.pom
      file:/C:/Users/Chris/.m2/repository/org/javassist/javassist/${javassist.version}/javassist-${javassist.version}.jar
      http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/javassist/javassist/${javassist.version}/javassist-${javassist.version}.pom
      http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/javassist/javassist/${javassist.version}/javassist-${javassist.version}.jar
      https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/public/org/javassist/javassist/${javassist.version}/javassist-${javassist.version}.pom
      https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/public/org/javassist/javassist/${javassist.version}/javassist-${javassist.version}.jar
  Required by:
      org.obsidianbox:Ember:1.0.0-SNAPSHOT > com.flowpowered:flow-plugins:0.1.0-SNAPSHOT > org.reflections:reflections:0.9.9-RC2

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output. 

The following stackoverflow recommends adding a gradle.properties to replace the placeholder:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24712717/gradle-build-failing-with-coud-not-resolve-javassist-version-illegal-c

While this does work, it only works for my IDE (IntelliJ) to make the module. If I use gradle in the IDE, it still won't build a jar so I can test Ember.

I welcome any feedback or a possible switch from using Reflections lib for the annotation scanning.

[Grinch]

Sadly this is an ignored but recognized issue. One solution as mentioned in the thread is to use our own version hosted on a Sonatype that removes the placeholder and instead uses a proper version.

http://forums.gradle.org/gradle/topics/_illegal_character_in_path_at_index_73_when_downloading_dependency_from_maven