Dungeon Journal

The Dungeon Journal, or sometimes referred to as the Encounter Journal, introduced in Patch 4.2.0, is essentially a feature to get information on the instance bosses - both for raids and dungeons. It is important to note that it is not a player guide that would give you hints and tricks on how to fight the boss, on how to avoid the fire or anything like that. It's a reference for the bosses. Players will be able to pull an encounter in the Encounter Journal and see a big 3D picture of his ingame model to the left that you could rotate around. And on the right you would have all his spells and abilities in little fly-outs that you can click and then read up on what the abilities do. For fights that have multiple phases those abilities can also be separated out into all the different phases. So the interface will actually break the abilities down into "phase 1" abilities, "phase 2" abilities and so forth. It does not tell you how to avoid it or how to deal with it. What it really does is helping out with tactics explanations.

Secondary to that the Encounter Journal provides a lists all of the loot directly within the game. So you will be able to click on a boss and see his entire loot list. You will also be able to click on a whole dungeon. And that loot can be sorted by normal mode, heroic mode, by your class and by your individual spec.

And all that works anywhere in the game. You could be standing in Stormwind and sort through loot or looking at the abilities on the Iron Council raid fight. And everything in the encounter journal is hotlinkable into chat. So you'd be able to click on the name of a boss and link him right into chat. Someone else could click on that, which would open the encounter journal for that boss with his info. The same goes for abilities and loot.

Alerts
Alerts are small icons that bring attention to more important abilities, effects, or even mobs during encounters within the Dungeon Journal.

The following icons and what they generally mean:
 * Heroic Only - Only happens during heroic modes.
 * Deadly - An ability that can likely kill its target.
 * Important - Something important, or requiring immediate attention.
 * Tank Alert - A creature the tank should be aware of.
 * DPS Alert - A creature the DPS should make their focus.
 * Healer Alert- Healers should be more attentive during this ability.
 * Interruptable - An ability that can be interrupted.
 * Magic Effect - A removable magic effect.
 * Curse Effect - A removable curse effect.
 * Poison Effect - A removable poison effect.
 * Disease Effect - A removable disease effect.
 * Enrage - When the boss enrages.

Instances covered

 * As of Patch 4.2.0 build 14107 on PTR.