[bestformaldress23]

BeBro, I agree in part - pike tactics are obviously necessary for pike use - but in this case I think it's one of the more straightforward examples. Hoplite and phalanx tactics weren't invented by Philip, even if he did adapt them to the sarissa. A generation before, Epaminondas used complex phalanx tactics at Leuctra, including deep formations and precise maneuver that Alexander would later utilize. I would call the sarissa "history changing" because, though it (like all weapons) is only as revolutionary as the tactics it requires, it made big changes after those tactics had, for the most part, already been developed.

There seem to be two types of weapons here - those like the sarissa or the flintlock, where existing tactics are improved drastically by a new weapon or weapon technology without the tactics themselves undergoing much change, and those like the chariot or cannon, where tactics are forced to change radically to deal with a new invention. The latter are are the more "revolutionary" inventions, but it doesn't mean that they were necessarily more "history-changing" than the former type.